It was not the focus of this week, but it deserves a mention:
We have this week reached 100,000+ unique hits on our blog. It is a proud moment…we would like to thank all our followers and supporters and hope to keep bringing you many more good posts and news bulletins! Thank you
The “REAL” big news for the week has been the announcement of ArchiCAD 17 by GRAPHISOFT. True BIM has arrived! For detailed information, refer to the features breakdown here.
GRAPHISOFT SA were the proud, first in the WORLD (except ofcourse for the GRAPHISOFT DEVELOPMENT TEAM IPC demo), to demonstrate the powerful new features of ArchiCAD 17, to the attendees of the 15th Annual ArchiCAD SADC Conference, at THE VENUE in Melrose Arch, Johannesburg, from 7-9 May 2013. The event, attended by GRAPHISOFT SA Channel Partners and Key Clients, saw a full house of delegates, covering a spectrum of local market development topics, which is set to increase ArchiCAD user experience in the SADC market.
An outline of the topics covered:
- GRAPHISOFT Key Note address: BIM has become the industry norm, OpenBIM is becoming the industry’s future
- K-rith Tower: from 3D to BIM
- Homevision: BIM based concept design to complete construction estimation and specification
- ArchiCAD SADC Market Integration: more choice to the end user
- Workshop Sessions
- ArchiCAD 17 introduction
- 4 training days, including ArchiCAD 17 new features and ArchiCAD Registered Consultant, Trainer & Technical Support
The Day 2 GRAPHISOFT KEYNOTE ADDRESS, by Ferenc Matyas, International Sales Manager, GRAPHISOFT Budapest, reviewed the industry norm of BIM and highlighted the commitment of GRAPHISOFT to build ArchiCAD, as a best in class, Architectural BIM authoring solution with OpenBIM support.
This presentation was followed by 2 local “project” reviews, the first, the K-rith Tower project, presented by Mark Grant of Grant & Whitfield Quantity Surveyors and Project Managers, identified the real world use of ArchiCAD as a project management tool (design coordination, construction sequencing), as well as a facilities management tool (commissioning, space planning, maintenance management, risk management, via ArchiFM and ArchiCAD).
The second of the local “project” reviews, was not a singular construction project, but a “project” taken on in the form of a new business venture, presented by K Kusel of Homevision Cape Town, showed how ArchiCAD was used to create a design response to the needs of a home owner, seeking design solutions, coupled with accurate quantities, specifications and construction costs.
The final presentation of the morning, was made by André Strauss of GRAPHISOFT SA, this presentation was the conclusion of the conference’s segment on localisation and market integration in SADC, reviewing the history and development of ArchiCAD in SADC since the early 90′s and focussing on the end user, with 2 key areas of development being announced for the next 12 months:
- the expansion of the support channel and the introduction of the end user controlled “coupon” system in Q3 2013
- an intensive localisation program, starting with specification system and manufacturer product integration into ArchiCAD
The Workshop Sessions saw a series of high interest topics covered:
- D Steenkamp, student competition winner, presented his project
- Integrated IT Solutions, presented their online ArchiCAD financing facility
- AutoSpec, presented their online specification system, to be integrated into ArchiCAD
- GRAPHISOFT SA, hosted the Educational Internship workshop, some very robust, yet fruitful discussions were had by the educational participants, which was well supported by key clients
The afternoon ofcourse belonged to ArchiCAD 17: 
GRAPHISOFT have focussed the development of ArchiCAD 17 on BIM detailing accuracy. This version delivers a BIM model of such high accuracy levels, that 1:50 detailing is automatically achieved (this is an accurate claim), further BIM exchange with other design disciplines is accurate as well as energy calculation within the design model. GRAPHISOFT have achieved this industry first, by creating a “construction accurate” workflow and modelling process. Take a moment to review ArchiCAD 17:
Further to the events of Day 2, the conference presented 4 days of ArchiCAD training. This included an ArchiCAD 17 new features training day, which will soon be replicated throughout SADC, to give end users the opportunity to learn the new features first hand, to access installer files and training videos and most importantly to update the ArchiCAD Keyplugs (dongles). On this, we remind all SADC ArchiCAD users of the WIBU expiration notice, we posted on 20 March 2013, this post provides you with the necessary steps to have your WIBU key replaced with a CODEMETER key, as the WIBU key cannot run ArchiCAD 17. The process is free, but must be started before you attend the regional upgrade training, please take a moment to review the steps you must take here.
The training days also included a certification training event, which was a very high level event, designed for the education and certification of channel partners to support you, the end user on technical support, training and project implementation topics. Please keep an eye on the trainer, registered consultant and service provider pages, to see the notifications this week of new certified members of our (YOUR) channel.
At the conclusion of the conference events, we were honoured to have a long list of end user recognition awards and channel partner certifications:
- student awards: D Mentz & D Steenkamp, TUT
- channel partner awards, VCS, Namibia
- channel partner reseller accreditations, iClix, ProData, R Jones, MultiCAD, IT Solutions, Solution Centre, VCS, Wrenjos, ArchiC
- channel partner Registered Consultant accreditations: N do Rosario, F Swanepoel, D Naidoo, M Rowland
- channel partner service provider accreditation: L Maliwa
- end user developer forum recognition awards: S Hopkins, K Kusel, E Bakker, N do Rosario
- end user recognition awards: Aziz Tayob Architects Inc., Osmond Lange Planners & Architects, Howard & Chamberlain Architects
- staff recognition, 10+ years: D Naidoo
Finally, I thank my team, the participating channel partners and key clients and the organisers at THE VENUE, for a very well organised, informative and enjoyable conference…SEE YOU NEXT YEAR!
Related articles
- CONGRATULATIONS to our Student Competition Winner! (archicadsa.org)
- GRAPHISOFT release ArchiCAD 17 (archicadsa.org)
- AutoSpec to attend 15th Annual ArchiCAD SADC Conference (archicadsa.org)
A review of Danie’s competition entry. As noted in the competition details, this competition is aimed at ArchiCAD skills: “…scoring weighted to use of ArchiCAD functionality to illustrate and explore the design concept, ie. good use of the project navigator, ArchiCAD visualisation functions, etc. will be considered towards scoring…“, the judging is done accordingly:
A review of Danél’s competition entry. As noted in the competition details, this competition is aimed at ArchiCAD skills: “…scoring weighted to use of ArchiCAD functionality to illustrate and explore the design concept, ie. good use of the project navigator, ArchiCAD visualisation functions, etc. will be considered towards scoring…“, the judging is done accordingly:
A review of Steffen’s competition entry. As noted in the competition details, this competition is aimed at ArchiCAD skills: “…scoring weighted to use of ArchiCAD functionality to illustrate and explore the design concept, ie. good use of the project navigator, ArchiCAD visualisation functions, etc. will be considered towards scoring…“, the judging is done accordingly:
A review of Andrew’s competition entry. As noted in the competition details, this competition is aimed at ArchiCAD skills: “…scoring weighted to use of ArchiCAD functionality to illustrate and explore the design concept, ie. good use of the project navigator, ArchiCAD visualisation functions, etc. will be considered towards scoring…“, the judging is done accordingly:
A review of Mthunzi’s competition entry. As noted in the competition details, this competition is aimed at ArchiCAD skills: “…scoring weighted to use of ArchiCAD functionality to illustrate and explore the design concept, ie. good use of the project navigator, ArchiCAD visualisation functions, etc. will be considered towards scoring…“, the judging is done accordingly:
